The Beginning of the University Autonomy in Latin America: Michoacán 1917, Córdoba 1918

Abstract

Autonomy was one of the most important demands of the reform movements that took place in Latin American universities at the beginning of the 20th century. One of its most important manifestations, due to its program and its importance, was the university reform movement in Córdoba, Argentina, in 1918. A year earlier, in Michoacán, Mexico, an autonomous university had been established. The granting of autonomy in the universities of Córdoba and Michoacán occurred under very different conditions and, despite this, it expressed common problems. From what happened in these institutions, a model of a university was consolidated in Latin America that would be dominant and would have full force during a large part of the 20th century.